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F5 is all about local and regional creators, so when Lester Rowe reached out to me on Twitter and asked if I would be interested in reviewing his book and documentary combo WiFi at Rock Bottom, I immediately said yes. When I realized the book was self-published, I admit I felt a little trepidation. My experience with self-published books has been decidedly mixed. Some have been engaging works of art, and some have been un-self-aware dreck. In which category would Rowe's book fall?

In her debut novel, The Given World, Marian Palaia speaks to a contemporaneous audience through the vehicle of a recent era: the Vietnam War. Palaia demonstrates that not all victims of war are veterans — some are children, parents or lovers of those who are wounded, killed or forever-changed by their experience abroad.

Arthur Bradford's newest collection of short stories, Turtleface and Beyond, presents a dozen absurd stories in a hauntingly relatable fashion. He shies away from no taboo, and his stories cover topics including the mentally ill, drug use, profanity, the sex industry and deviating from societal norms.

It generally doesn't take 20 years or more to write a novel, but that's how long Christopher Scotton's debut novel The Secret Wisdom of the Earth has been kicking around in his head. The idea came to him while in his 20s when he noticed the constant sadness in his friend's mother. This friend told him of his brother's tragic death as a child, and the story stuck with Scotton, building and changing and developing.

Something More Than Night, Ian Tregillis's metaphysical noir, opens with the murder of the seraph Gabriel. It's a passage that sets the tone for the whole novel: jaw-dropping prose, weaving through religious ecstasy and quantum physics, tinged with the Chandler-esque tough-guy argot of Bayliss, the fallen angel who narrates every other chapter. I would really like to quote two pages here, but will contain myself to the first two paragraphs: "They murdered one of the Seraphim tonight. Gabriel streaked across the heavens like a tumbling meteor, his corpse a fireball of sublimated perfection.

The overwhelming popularity of the Batman television series in the mid-sixties popularized the caped crusader around the world, including the distant shores of Japan. The property was licensed by a shonen manga publisher and thus Japan got its very own, original Batman comics, which have finally been translated and compiled for American audiences in what will become a comprehensive three volume collection.

The name Woody Allen evokes a host of reactions. Whether you see him as an uncompromising auteur, the ne plus ultra of Jewish comedians, or the ogre that Mia Farrow would have you believe him to be, it's hard to avoid having a pre-conceived notion of what Allen is all about. The fact that he's been making about a movie per year for 40 years certainly provides a lot of material from which to form an opinion. Myself, I've never cared for him as an artist, and haven't even managed to sit through an entire Allen film. So why am I reviewing a book about Woody Allen's work?

It's a well documented fact that war is hell, and World War I, doubly so. Robbie Morrison and Charlie Adlard's White Death tells the based-on-true-facts tale of Italian soldiers fighting in the Alps who came up with the bright idea of using artillery to drop avalanches on their Prussian opponents. These avalanches are the titular death. Like all weapons of war, this idea eventually gets turned against its own creator, and life for everyone on the front lines gets even worse.

International best-selling author Stephen King is including Wichita in his six-city book tour to support his latest novel, Revival.

Watermark Books & Cafe, in partnership with Wichita State University, will host the New York Times bestselling author on Friday, Nov. 14, at WSU's Eugene M. Hughes Metropolitan Complex, 5015 E. 29th St. N. (29th and Oliver). King's presentation will begin at 6 p.m. Doors will open at 5 p.m.

We've all read and adored the 1947 childhood classic, Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown; but have any of us ever stopped to imagine the circumstances that might have inspired such a poignant story? Why, for example, is the main character a bunny; why does his mush go uneaten; and why is the story set in a forest-green room?

Sarah Jio — accomplished author of six internationally acclaimed novels including the Library Journal Best Book of 2011, The Violets of March — tackles these questions in her for-adults novel, Goodnight June.

Haruki Murakami is an internationally respected author with more than a dozen books translated into English, and quite a few more that have yet to be. Murakami, who shouldn't be confused (as I did, initially) with fellow Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, has written novels, short stories and non-fiction, such as his 2000 book Underground, about the 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, as well as essays and books about his experiences as a long-distance runner.

In her second work of historical fiction, Robin Oliveira whisks readers to the middle of the burgeoning Impressionist movement in La Belle Epoque Paris through the career of a young Mary Cassatt. Similar to Woody Allen who, in his charming Midnight in Paris, brings personalities such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein back to life, Oliveira introduces readers to Impressionist celebrities such as Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro and the ill-fated lovers Edouard Manet and his sister-in-law, Berthe Morisot.

As far as true crime stories go, Little Demon in the City of Light has a lot going for it: a devious ingenue, her brutish lover, murder, hypnotism, con games, all set in Belle Epoque France. Gabrielle Bompard was a child of privilege who lost her way, and with the aid of her overpowering beau Michel Eyraud she seduced and killed a prominent Paris businessman. They don't actually get away with much in the way of cash, but nevertheless flee across Europe, and eventually to the United States, grafting and conning to finance themselves.

It's pretty difficult to talk about Andre Roussimoff (a.k.a. Andre The Giant) without resorting to the hackneyed phrase "larger than life" because it's so apt. He stood seven feet, four inches and was one of the most beloved figures in the world of professional wrestling. Box Brown's bio-comic captures the man at the core of this legend, but without losing sight of all the wonder and spectacle that a life like his would entail.

The Slow Movement has become a bit of a thing lately: Carlo Petrini's protest against the opening of a McDonald's franchise in Rome in 1986, has led to Cittaslow, Slow Living, Slow Travel, Slow Design, Slow Parenting and so on. The idea behind the Slow Movement is to slow down life's pace, which is a fabulous idea, and the thing perfectly suited to slowness is a book. Books, by their nature, seem to stubbornly resist speed and, so, books must, surely, constitute the Ur-Slow Movement.

The Slow Movement has become a bit of a thing lately: Carlo Petrini's protest against the opening of a McDonald's franchise in Rome in 1986, has led to Cittaslow, Slow Living, Slow Travel, Slow Design, Slow Parenting and so on. The idea behind the Slow Movement is to slow down life's pace, which is a fabulous idea, and the thing perfectly suited to slowness is a book. Books, by their nature, seem to stubbornly resist speed and, so, books must, surely, constitute the Ur-Slow Movement.